From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cushion caroms (or cushion carom
billiards)[1]
sometimes called by its original name, the indirect
game,[2] is a carom billiards
discipline generally played on a cloth-covered, 5 foot ×
10 foot, pocketless table with two cue balls and a third
red-colored ball. The game is sometimes incorrectly referred to as
one-cushion or one-cushion billiards, which is
the direct translation of its name into English from various other
languages such as Spanish
("una banda") and German
("einband").[3]

Cushion caroms is traceable to 1820s Britain and is a descendant of the
doublet game dating to at least 1807, which required the
sole object ball to be banked off a cushion
before being pocketed or, as it was described in 1833: "...no
hazard is scored unless it is made by reverberation."[3][4][5]

The name of the game is taken from the pre-existing shot. In a
cushion carom shot, the cue ball caroms (strikes and
rebounds[6]) off of
both object balls with at least
one rail being struck before the hit on the second object ball. The
object of the game is to score up to an agreed upon number of
cushion caroms, with one point being awarded for each successfully
made. If no object ball is contacted, one point is
deducted. If there is ambiguity as to whether the second ball was
contacted, it is resolved in favor of the shooter.[3][7]

Cushions caroms was defunct for a number of years, but was
revived in the late 1860s as an alternative to the game straight rail, in which points are scored
by a simple carom off both object balls with no cushion
requirement. Straight rail had for a time been falling into
disfavor based on frustration by spectators with skill developments
which allowed top players to monotonously score a seemingly endless series of points with
the balls barely moving in a confined area of the table playing
area. This was a result of the "rail nurse", a shot in which the
object balls are nudged at very soft speed down a rail to a
duplicate position again and again.[3][7]

Instead of stopping long runs as intended, the skills developed
at straight rail were transferred over to cushion caroms. Some time
between 1881 and 1889 a new nurse was developed for cushion caroms,
known as the "rub nurse." With the two object balls stacked
perpendicular to a rail and just next to it, the rub nurse is
performed by gently banking the cue ball off the rail just before
them resulting in a soft graze of both and the same or near the
same position repeating.[3]

While cushion caroms waxed and waned, the game of balkline was, by the late
1870s, increasingly becoming effective at limited nursing. It
eclipsed cushion caroms as the game of public match play and
tournaments until well into the 20th century.[3]
This is not to say that cushion caroms did not retain some
popularity with the public. For example, it is known that Mark Twain enjoyed the
game on occasion.[3][8][9] The
presently-dominant game, three-cushion billiards, a
direct outgrowth of cushion caroms also beginning in the 1870s, did
not marginalize balkline until the 1920s.

The first known public exhibition at cushion caroms took place
in 1867, won by Joseph Dion over John McDevitt. The first public
match was won by "the wizard",[10]Jacob Schaefer, Sr., and the only world
tournament at the game, in New
York in 1888, was won by Joseph Dion.

The U.S. title at cushion caroms has only been held by six men:
Joseph Dion, William Sexton, Maurice Daly, George Slosson and the
indomitable Willie
Hoppe, who held it for 11 years from 1933 to 1944. Today,
cushion caroms is rarely played in the U.S., but it still enjoys
some popularity in Europe where it is featured as one of the five
games making up the annual billiards pentathlons, the other four games being
47.1 balkline, straight rail, 71.2 balkline and three-cushion
billiards.[3]